Happy Saturday, peeps. I know you all like cowboys, right? After all, what's not to like, and I'm delighted to have April Zyon back on my blog today with her last instalment in her Massey Texas Series.

Take it away, April :-)

Blurb:When handed the Intel on a potential threat Martin Carver had no idea it would be what led him back to the town of his birth. At age nineteen he’d left Massey, Texas in his dust. But now when the life of someone he loves being threatened even the claustrophobic town won’t keep him from protecting her. And God help those after her.Taking over her father’s practice had always been in the cards for Athena Rhodes. What she didn’t expect was to take over from him was the baggage that came along with the business. Law abiding woman that she is, Athena reaches out to get some help. Not in the cards was having the only man to ever hold her heart walk through the door, and tell her he was there to get her out from under the mob.Everyone has always believed Martin to be the classic do-gooder. Building homes in third world countries, off saving the whales from drilling platforms, or any number of stories that have filtered through Massey through the years. To find out every single one of those stories were nothing more than fairy tales is one thing, to find out he’s actually an FBI agent will take some getting used to.Athena’s running out of time, the mob having set a time limit on what they require her to do. If she fails to follow their demands to the letter it will mean her father’s life. Unsure what to do she will lean heavily on Martin, and hope he doesn’t let her fall.The clock is against them to keep the woman Martin loves and her dad safe. He’ll do whatever it takes to end the threat rising against them. Because he’s got an all or nothing plan. What could go wrong?Excerpt:CountyLineMassey, TexasHe didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there staring at the sign announcing, “Welcome to Massey, TX Population 5,609 and growing!” but the hood under his ass was cooling, and the sun had reached its highest point. Hell, it was starting the slow slide toward the horizon.It had been a long, long time since he’d been home. The last time he’d been there he’d flown in for his pop’s funeral, stuck around for the meal, and then got the hell out of Dodge. Since then, he hadn’t been home once. He called, though, every single weekend right after his mother had finished breakfast on Sundays. They would chat for exactly one hour and fifteen minutes. No more, no less. The woman always had enough gossip to fill that time, so he rarely had to say much of anything.Yet, here he was. Staring into the abyss of the quintessential small town. Ranches and farms spread out as far as the eye could see and beyond. Nestled in the middle was Massey. His hometown, and the place he’d burned rubber to get away from the moment he’d turned eighteen. Unlike his brothers, Martin had always hated coming back. To him, it had felt claustrophobic. Whether from his family’s expectations, or from his own uncertainty about the future, he didn’t know.This time was no different. So, there he was, sitting on the hood of his ‘66 Mustang. While she maintained her shape, he’d given her a few tweaks over the years. A new paint job when he was eighteen, and a new hemi engine when he was twenty-two. There were a few other not exactly legal additional elements to Eris, named after the goddess of chaos, strife, and discord. His brothers had actually named his car, but he’d let it stick. Hell, he’d even gotten a little name plate that was attached to the dashboard right over the speedometer.Martin shook his head, leaning back on his hands as he continued to stare in the direction of the town. He remembered back in high school a rumor Frank had told him about. His older brother had apparently also started it, but he denied it with a smirk every single time Martin confronted him.According to the “rumor,” if a girl managed to talk Martin into taking her out a date, she prayed he’d be driving Eris. If he showed up in his pop’s old pickup truck, then she knew she would be getting walked to the front door, given a peck on the cheek, and he’d promptly leave to never call her for another date. But if he showed up in Eris, the girl would be getting a tour of the backseat, on her back, and things would be a rocking.Not once had Martin ever taken a girl out in Eris. There’d been one he’d thought about, right before leaving town for good, but she’d been too young, and he definitely hadn’t needed that sort of thing to follow him or her around for the rest of their days.Athena Rhodes. Named for the virgin goddess of reason, intelligent activity, arts, and literature. A more perfect name for the woman in question there never would be. She’d always had an ethereal quality about her, always thinking before leaping, and was the one woman who still had him jolting up out of bed in the middle of the night from the dreams she starred front and center in.Not the teenage version of Athena Rhodes either. Nope, he knew exactly what she looked like as of four weeks ago. Hell, he even had her photo in the folder sitting on the passenger seat of his car. The rest of what was in the folder was why he was there, despite digging in his heels with the director of the FBI. Fucking bastard found it funny that Martin didn’t want to go home for a visit and deal with the trouble Athena found herself in. In the director’s mind, it was two birds, one stone. In Martin’s, it was a colossal fuck up in the making. Especially if Athena was anywhere near it.Athena, bane of his existence. She’d been just starting to come into the woman she would one day be when he’d left Massey. Now she was more than he could ever have imagined. Five-foot-seven, long, rich red hair the color of a wine with hints of copper and strawberries. Green eyes that could lighten with amusement or darken like a coming storm. Athena had the stereotypical redhead temper, though he knew from his mother’s gossip she rarely showed it any more. So she’d gotten it under control. Should be interesting to test that theory.Pale golden skin, just a hint of a tan, with a smattering of freckles over her nose and upper curve of her cheeks. A slightly rounded face with amazing bone structure, straight nose, slightly pointed chin, gave her face a heart-shaped look. A long ,elegant neck he’d imagined nibbling on in his quest to discover if there were freckles anywhere else on her body. His dreams said yes, but Martin didn’t think he’d really ever find out.To top off his perfect woman’s image, Athena had some meat on her bones. She was built like a woman, sturdy, and not like one of those twigs from Hollywood that would blow over if you sneezed in their direction. She was, quite literally, his dream woman given form. Or maybe, he should say, she was the woman of his dreams, if only he had the nerve to tell her.His other problem with the woman. She got him all twisted up inside, and turned him into a babbling fool. Or she had. Martin really hoped she still didn’t have that particular effect on him. ‘Cause that would just be the fucking icing on the cake for this whole damned trip.The sound of an engine pulled his attention back, and he let out a sigh when the truck got close enough for him to recognize it. All the time in the world seemed to have passed, and the damn pickup truck that was used around the Carver Ranch was still exactly the same. Squinting slightly at the reflection off the windshield, he waited for his brother to swing it around and park it behind the Mustang.The crunch of boots to gravel told him where his big brother was, yet still, he waited. Only when the other man slid onto the hood next to him did he give a nod. “Frank,” he said quietly.“Martin.” That was it, nothing else.Course they didn’t really need to say much of anything else. Despite rumors to the contrary, ones sort of started by him, he and Frank had worked together more than once. They even talked on a fairly regular basis. While Frank had worked for a different branch, and under different mandates for the US government, Martin had always been his brother’s contact inside the bureau.“Eris is looking good,” Frank said after another ten minutes of silence.“She held up well on the drive. Only got a bit cranky with me outside of Dallas. But a quart of oil and she was purring like an overgrown kitten again.”Frank snorted out a laugh at that. “I can’t believe you still have her.”“Dude, she’s family. Quit trash talking my car.”Hands up, Frank cracked a grin. A real grin. As in teeth and everything. While Martin was staring in shock, he missed what his brother was saying. “What? Sorry.”“I asked you how long you plan on sitting out here. According to Willard, you’ve been here since eight this morning. It’s now nearly two in the afternoon.”Heaving a sigh, Martin shoved his hands through his pale blond hair. Out of all the Carvers, his was the lightest in color, but his eyes were the darkest. The oddities of the familial gene pool. “Working up the nerve to drive across the county line is all.”“Uh-huh. You do know that Mama’s already heard you’re here. And the fact you are sitting here, and not at her kitchen table where she can smother you with all that built up motherly love, means you are in seriously deep shit, little brother.”Martin winced at that. Yeah, his mama would hug him, weep all over him, and then likely bean him with her rolling pin. Theresa Carver was in no way a pushover. She might play the part occasionally to lure the unaware in close, but then she struck. She could make a grown man in a full rage cry like a little girl in under two minutes. Without even batting a lash. She was that good.“So, what has you here?” Frank asked.Normally, he wouldn’t discuss it, but Frank still held his beyond top secret clearance level, and likely would as long as he was still breathing. “Athena Rhodes, or rather her dirty, lowdown scoundrel of a father.”Frank’s head whipped around to look his way. “Shit. You got handed that one?”“Yup.”“Well fuck me.”Yup. Pretty much Martin’s exact thoughts on the matter.

A small aside about the series, Massey Texas, from the author...I’ve always been fascinated with Cowboys. I know, most people are but to me there is just something super sexy about a man who is willing to work his ass off for a living. Something that’s incredibly hot about a man who knows how to work the land with his own hands.When I originally started Massey Texas with Rhys Hollister and Gwen Baker I never dreamed that one of the families central to the story would stand up and take center stage, but they did. The Carver Family stood out pretty much from the get go in this series and they had to have their stories told.Massey Texas has been a wonderful thrill-ride fro me, each time the characters spoke they tended to throw me for a loop, so to speak, and I loved every single moment of it.While I’m tentatively ending this series at this book, the 9thin the series, it doesn’t mean that I will never revisit it one day in the future. After all, there were a couple of babies born to the Carver family that might eventually need their stories told!I truly hope that you have all enjoyed the Massey Texas series as much as I have, and I hope that you will continue to read the books that I put out as either April Zyon, or Honor James.~~~ Peace and love my friends, and be good to each other!

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About ME

I like to spin sensual, sassy, and sexy tales involving alpha heroes to die for, and heroines who give as good as they get. From contemporary to paranormal, BDSM to F/F, M/M, and Ménage, haunting love stories are guaranteed.